SugarCoated: A Second Helping
by A Sweet Catastrophe
Summary: Mulling over the Kira case one day, L catches sight of someone he remembers, his almost first friend from the Wammy House who left before they got to really know each other. Could this be a second chance?
1. Prologue: Observations

_**Author's Note: **It's not necessary to have read the one-shot before this but you can if you wish. I seem to write a lot of sequels. I guess I can't cope with seeing a story end. This story will last about six chapters but some are quite long. Posting will probably be very slow because I'm working on another story and just about finishing up college applications. Enjoy!_

_Disclaimer: This is a fanfiction site. I don't own L or any other _Death Note _characters that may be used. However, I do own the girl and pull her puppet strings like the malevolent God I am._

_Prologue_

Somewhere above his lowly dipped head a harsh, artificial bell chimed, causing him to look up from the dull glow of the computer screen. It was five o'clock in the evening exactly; he had carefully set it that way, making sure each second was carefully aligned. He let go of the computer mouse that was warm from his palm after the seven or so hours he had spent using it and pushed himself away from his desk so that the wheels of his chair swung him over to the large, almost floor to ceiling window of his decadent hotel room. Down on the cracked sidewalk below he saw her walking by, very much in a daze as if she was trying to reason something important out in her head.

He wasn't one hundred percent sure that it was her though. It had been years since he last saw her so what were the odds that his memory was sharp enough to accurately and intricately construct an image of what she would look like now? Actually, the odds weren't too bad. He could still remember what she used to look like as if meeting her and watching her leave had happened yesterday all thanks to his unquestionably fantastic memory.

The person walking down the street had dark hair that was combed and cut professionally, unlike the girl he had met at the orphanage, but she had long bangs that covered her right eye like a neater alternative for just raking the messy hair over her eye with her fingers. He couldn't properly see the color of her visible eye but he was sure that if he got a good look it would be dark green. The person on the street dressed differently than the girl too, clean, accomplished, and not at all disheveled. Today she was wearing a blue sweater and a khaki-colored skirt underneath a white lab coat, a manilla folder held tightly in her hands which kept moving the folder around in different positions as if she couldn't decide where she wanted to hold it. That girl had wanted to be a doctor and this person clearly was. Further evidence that they were the same person, he thought to himself.

She walked by his hotel every day at exactly five when many others were also coming home from work so you would expect her to get lost in the crowd. In fact, noticing her had been the definition of chance happening. He had just been thinking about the Kira case by the fifty million view window one day two weeks ago when his eyes lazily fell to the road outside and saw her walking alone and undisturbed. He had no idea where she was living or why she was in Japan in the first place but he was a solid eighty percent sure that it was her. He frequently thought about going outside for just long enough for her to see him and recognize him. He knew it was silly to hold onto the idea that she could be his friend but wasn't there still a lingering possibility that they could pick up where they left off?

But then she would be out of sight, down the street heading to some indeterminate location, and he would wonder if tomorrow would be the day as he went back to his research.


	2. Chapter 1: Trailing And Catching

_**Author's Note:** I have reread this chapter so many times that I'm sick of it. I'm not satisfied but I am so tired of reading it that I figured, "What the hell? Post!"_

The bell on the clock awoke him the next day, an abnormal occurrence since usually he forsakes sleep in favor of what he considers more productive activities. In fact, sleep is quite alien to him.

He groggily lifted his head up as he contemplated throwing the clock out the window and onto the street to allow it to smash into hundreds of pieces but it was the only thing that reminded him what time it was since he had lost most of his perception of it. I fell asleep in my computer chair again, he thought, rolling his neck around to loosen the tension that had formed from sleeping in such a strange position. The last thing he could remember before he fell asleep was eating a late lunch. It was delicious cake. After that everything became a blur.

He pushed himself over to the window and saw her walking down the side of the street with determination in her step, unusual since she typically walked with a sort of lethargy that happens when one is tired but can't sleep and her eyelids would usually rebel against her efforts to keep them up. He wondered about her sudden change in an attitude that had remained invariant for weeks until he saw her stop in front of his hotel. His breathing slowed as his attention focused on her. She gazed up at the impressive, chrome-colored building with a dubious expression and reached into the pocket of her black trousers to pull out a slip of paper. She glanced from the paper to the hotel and then put it back in her pocket and entered the edifice.

Making the split second decision to see why she had come in, he leapt from his chair and slipped into the elevator, thankful that no one else was around. Although he had nothing to fear in the realm of being killed by Kira since no one outside of the task force knew his identity as the infamous detective and no one knew his name at all, caution was always somewhere in the forefront of his mind. He pressed the button for the lobby, confident that he would find her there unless she was visiting someone in the hotel. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and tapped his foot until the doors opened again revealing the extravagant lobby of the hotel.

Rich, business people lounged in expensive furniture around the perimeter of the large silver and gold room. Above them hung a eye-catching crystal chandelier and a painted ceiling that even Michelangelo would give his stamp of approval. At the large reception desk on the back wall of the lobby, she waited in line behind a man in a perfectly tailored suit as she kept looking upward at the beautiful mural. Looking quite incongruous in his plain white shirt and jeans, he hid behind the thick doorframe between a hallway and the lobby and watched her as the man left and she stepped up to the receptionist.

"Hello. I would like to check into my room." she said in English as she held up some sort of identification, most likely a driver's licence. The receptionist looked back at her confused, glancing out of the corners of his eyes as if he was asking someone for assistance even though there was no one there. She sighed.

"Oh sure, everyone speaks at least a little English, that liar." she muttered quietly to herself as she dung around in her pocket for another piece of paper similar to the one she had been looking at when she was outside of the hotel. She held it in front of her face, squinting a bit as she repeated what she had said, only in Japanese this time. Her pronunciation wasn't flawless but this time he understood and took her ID so he could type her name into the computer. When he found her name he reached under the desk to find the corresponding room key.

"Arigatou," She said, slightly proud of herself for actually knowing a Japanese word, and took the key as she turned towards the hallway he was lurking in. He stealthily dove into the dark crook between the doorway and the freshly painted hallway walls and she walked passed him blissfully ignorant of his presence.

She carefully strolled down the numerous halls of the hotel, skimming the numbers of each room in an effort to find hers and he followed her, feeling more like a stalker than he ever had, even though he had put illegal security cameras in the homes of potential suspects without batting an eye. I'm not stalking her, he told himself. I'm trying to figure out if she is a girl I went to school with. There is nothing dismaying or illegal about that. But hasn't she passed room 304 already?

Then something dawned upon him. She was walking in circles and very fast circles at that. She had bolted up the same stairway at least three times, falling twice, and each time she still looked around as if she could not find her room. He had caught onto the numbering system easily; each room was a three digit number with the first digit being what floor they were on, odd numbered rooms on the left, even on the right. Is she really so confused? He wondered. I would ask her if she needs help but then she'd know I was following her. The system really isn't that complex. Maybe I have the wrong girl. Anyone who could even be considered for the Wammy House must be sharper than this . . .

Finally, she stopped dead in her tracks in the middle of the hall with her hands moving around in her pockets and her back to him, even though he was trying to look inconspicuous. She sighed heavily.

"I know you're following me," she declared matter-of-factly, her back still towards him. "If you want to talk to me, come out of the shadows and talk. If you're looking for a girl to stalk, find someone a little less percipient."

His large eyes widened. She knew I was following her the whole time. When she had started running, it was to try to lose me. Now I'm eighty-five percent sure it's her.

"Listen, I'm going to call the police." she threatened, her hand fumbling around in her pocket, seemingly trying to find a cell phone. "You aren't as slick as you think you are." she challenged, a quite audacious move in his opinion. If she were being followed by an actual stalker, they might have accepted it as a dare.

Now I have no choice but to run away or take the risk that I had been putting off for weeks. I'm so sure it's her so logically I have nothing to be afraid of, he thought to himself as he took a short step away from the wall.

"Hello." he said, more timidly than is characteristic of him.

She had been expecting to be faced with someone middle-aged, fat, and balding who could easily knock her out and carry her away. Not that she was afraid; she had learned basic self-defense and she could easily take someone down with one kick and run like hell. But the voice didn't really match her image of this stalker. The voice sounded like someone her age and someone who was hoping not to have the police called on them. She slowly turned around.

He looked up at her and half-smiled hoping with all his willpower that she would either recognize him or, at the absolute least, not find him creepy. Either one would suffice really at this point, he decided.

"You," she murmured in awe, pointing at him. "From the Wammy House. England. The boy with no name."

He stifled a laugh. Her lack of complete sentences due to shock was amusing. "You can call me Ryuzaki." he said. "I knew that it was you."

"It's so good to see you." she gushed, running over to him. "You really haven't changed." she said, looking him up and down.

"You have." he said, a slight bit of disdain in his voice as he took in her new-looking, stylish clothes and neat hair. He wanted so badly to mess up her hair.

"Yeah," she said, sounding embarrassed as she patted down a few flyaway strands on the back of her head. "I'm a little cleaner, I guess. But I swear I've only changed a little on the outside. The only real thing about me that has changed on the inside is that I'm not nervous around you anymore," she said with a smile, wondering if she said too much. She sometimes doesn't know when to stop talking. "If you're not busy would you like to, I don't know, catch up? I'm going to be living at this hotel for a while until . . . well, it's a long story."

"I'm not busy. And I'd like to catch up." he said. Although, really, we didn't know each other too well back then, he thought. Everything I learned about her was learned that one brief day that she left. I don't even know for sure if she knew anything about me prior to then. She must have. She knew back then that I was always alone. She knew I liked those cookies. She knew, somehow, that I secretly wanted a friend and for her last day, probably the only day she could work up the courage, she was that friend.

"My room's right here." she said, motioning to the door next to her as she slid in the card key. She opened the door quickly and, before she could register the position of her face in relation to the oncoming door, she hit herself directly in the nose. She laughed nervously, rubbing the pain dull. "I'm fine." she assured him. He gave her a doubtful look. "I do it all the time. Hopefully someone already brought my suitcase over here because otherwise, I may have to resort back to my technique when I was younger of wearing the same thing for days at a time."

"There's nothing wrong with that." he said motioning to his clothes. She smiled as she entered the room, noticing her rather small suitcase by the door.

"Wait, what's your name anyway? You never told me." he said, following her into her hotel room which was just as lavish as his.

"Kit. Just Kit. Would you like some tea or snacks?" she said quickly, wanting to get off the topic of her name, which he knew had to be the fake name the Wammy House had given her. Not that Ryuzaki was his real name either.

"Yes. That would be great." he said, taking a seat on her couch and pulling his legs close to his body.

"Okay." she said walking into the kitchen nook, which truthfully was hardly ever used by the rich occupants of the hotel who could easily afford to eat at the most expensive restaurants every night and not have to lift a finger in the act of labor.

"So what is it you do now, Kit? You said there was some kind of long story involved." he asked, watching her fill the kettle with water and look around for tea bags. She hadn't technically said her work involved a long story, just her living situation, but he figured that there was a direct correlation.

"I'm a neurosurgeon." she said, walking into the room with a tray of little cakes and sitting down next to him. She crossed her legs and placed the tray on the coffee table in front of the sofa and started drumming her fingers on her legs. He popped one of the cakes into his mouth. Who cares that I had cake for lunch, he thought.

"I'm sort of a traveling surgeon actually. My main practice is stationed in England but I get sent all over the world. I guess I'm kind of well known." she said humbly. "I've been here in Japan for a little more than two weeks. I have a patient here who has a rare brain mutation that we are trying to, if not suppress, at least delay the destruction it's causing to his brain cells. I was originally staying with one of the Japanese surgeons I'm working with to try to save money but I just couldn't stand the lack of privacy so I'm here now." She took a mini chocolate cake and ate it. "So what do you do, Ryuzaki? Investigative work?" The kettle hissed rapidly behind them, shooting condensed water vapor like a train shoots smoke. "Hold that thought," she said getting up to pour a cup for each of them. She returned to the couch with the cups and a large bowl of sugar cubes cradled in her arm.

I can't tell her too much, he thought to himself as he started dropping cubes into his tea. I don't believe that she is Kira but this isn't a secure room. Although it's highly likely that I can trust her. She is a colleague, in a way. She gave me her fake name so that proves she must still practice what she has learned.

"Yes, of course." he answered vaguely, eating another cake. He knew she would ask more questions so he didn't want to tell her anything he didn't have to, just in case.

"What kinds of cases are you working on? Anything I may have heard about?" she asked, eyeing the sugar icebergs floating in his cup with a grin.

Yes, one everyone has heard of and I wish I could tell you about it and get your input.

"Well, I'll take pretty much any case,"_ under which ever of my three personas fits best_, "but lately I've been trying to take only a few cases at one time," _but I actually only focus primarily on the Kira case because it interests me and I am L_.

"Oh . . . ," she said simply, her eyes narrowing slightly as if something he said didn't make sense to her. He had walked around the question and that fact was not lost on her.

"So are you living here in Japan now?" she asked, eyes still scrutinizing him as she put one hand in her pocket and tapped a finger on her other hand on the coffee table like a metronome.

A safe enough question. "Yes."

"Where? Are you staying in this hotel or did you happen to follow me down the street, which would mean I'm not as observant as I give myself credit for?" she asked, sipping her tea, frowning, and putting in a sugar cube.

"Yes, I'm staying here. I move around to suit cases like you do. And I didn't follow you down the street but I did see you outside of my window quite a few times." He had a feeling his last statement would deter the conversation away from talk of his job.

"You did?" she said, cocking her head to one side. "My, how the tables have turned. Back when we were young, I used to see you around a lot too."

--

"I should go. I have an early day tomorrow." he told her, standing up, his shoulders hunched forward. They had been talking and eating for hours and now that midnight had rolled around it finally occurred to him that he might want to go back to his room and attempt the wasteful act of sleeping even though he knew there was no possible way he could with the sugar pumping through his veins and the natural high from the conversation. And the task force would be coming in at seven thirty so he might want to at least have some research to show them.

"Okay." she said standing up to walk him to the door. "Do you want to take some of the leftover cookies?" They had long since finished the mini cakes and some chocolate-filled biscuits.

"No, that's okay." he said. They had pretty much ate everything she had. He wanted her to at least have something for breakfast.

They stood in front of the door for a while looking at each other, both trying to get some general idea of the proper social conduct in such a situation and not being able to find an answer. After a prolonged silence, she began to anxiously rock back and forth on her feet, making him nervous. He gripped her arms to hold her steady so she wouldn't fall and she laughed, finding his concern endearing.

"Would you like to come over again tomorrow?" she asked, her hands slowly coming out of her pockets.

His face lit up. "Yes. I'll come by when you get back from work." he said cheerfully. Either the sugar was really kicking in or there was something about her. And he was pretty sure that he was immune to the energizing effects of processed sugar products.

She smiled. "Okay. I'll see you then. Goodbye." she said, wrapping her arms around him. Surprised, he fell forward against her.

He couldn't remember being hugged. It had probably happened to him before when he was younger but he had no recollection of it. Being so close to someone allows you to realize things that otherwise are not noticeable. He noticed that she was on the slender side but not fit, soft, probably from so many unhealthy foods. He also realized that he must not have talked to a girl in a while because she seemed so short in comparison to him and with his hunched posture, he could rest his chin on her head with little extra effort. He also realized that he didn't want to let go of her. He was never this close to anyone. It felt good to cling to something for once. Being strictly self-sufficient didn't really allow such acts of co-dependence, even one so simple as a hug, but he had no qualms or hesitations when asking for help on the Kira case so why should asking for solace be any different?

Her grip started to loosen but he held onto her, the result being that they were looking at each other with their hands still around each other, her eternally restless ones playing with the fabric of his shirt. He reached up and brushed her bangs away from her right eye finding that not seeing both her eyes bothered him for no explainable reason. It was light green, an almost lime green that barely compared with her forest green left eye.

"A weird secret, huh?" she said emotionlessly, even though her lack of emotions ultimately made her seem sad. "Another reason kids didn't like me. I'm easily mockable and I've got bad eyesight too."

Suddenly, he kissed her, quickly and forcefully, causing her to lose her balance but he held onto her upper arms tightly. When he let go of her seconds later, she blinked and stared at him blankly as if she wasn't quite sure what just happened.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what I was doing." he admitted. He wasn't exactly used to having emotions get in the way of his rational thinking. He could relate to how truly alone she was and he wanted it to be clear to her that they have the option of being there for each other.

She laughed and kissed him gently, causing flashbacks to the night she left. Her mouth still tasted like sugar, soft and sweet and obviously very desirable to his tastebuds. She still made him feel uneasily thrilled at the prospect of not being the one in power, or at least not being the one with the most knowledge on the situation, but he knew eventually he would catch onto this 'relationship' thing.

When she pulled away, his fingers found their way into her hair, messing it up until she looked like the girl from years ago. He took a step back to examine his work and smiled satisfied. She shook her head grinning and gave him a peck on the cheek as she opened the door for him.

"Goodbye . . . L."


	3. Chapter 2: Question Game

_**Author's Note:** So I keep hearing people call L a hobo. He's just about the richest hobo ever. And these two make a good rich hobo couple._

_Yeah, that was pointless. For a change of pace, this is a cute and sweet chapter. Shocker._

"Thank you everyone. You may go home now." he said to the task force members, his back to them as he pretended to do research while subtly glancing up at the clock. It was 4:55.

"Whoa, man. I'm beat." Matsuda declared, stretching out his arms. "Later, L- Ryuzaki." he said, leaving the room followed by Aizawa, Ukita, and Mogi. Yagami was the last to exit because he had been considering asking more about the friendship between his peculiar superior and his son but decided against it. His son wasn't Kira and he was sure of it.

When he heard the door click shut he waited for roughly thirty seconds before he turned around to make sure they were all gone. The clock above read 4:57.

He put the computer on standby and walked out of the room. Her room was on his floor and only a few rooms down from his, but he didn't want to be late. He walked up to her door and jiggled the handle to find that it was locked. He sat down next to the door with his knees tucked into his chest and started thinking about her and the Kira case and whether or not it would become a topic for discussion. She clearly would have made a good detective if she had never left the Wammy house but she could still give her thoughts on the matter. She might think of something he hadn't considered or, at the very least, she would support or denounce his already made assumptions and make him think certain details over more meticulously.

"Sorry, I'm late." she said, breaking his concentration. Her hair was all messed up the way he liked it, even though it still hid her right eye, and she was holding two fairly empty looking, brown paper bags in her arms with her card key already out. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and looked at the glowing screen. It was 5:10.

"No big deal." he said, standing up. "You gave me some extra time to think."

"Oh, I'm sure you don't do enough of that." she said sarcastically. She pressed the bags against the wall so she could steady herself as she tried to fit the card key into the door slot but found that she couldn't with her arms full. Noticing this and wanting to keep her from hurting herself, he gently eased the plastic card out of her fingers and opened the door, holding it for her as she walked inside.

"Thank you." she said, walking into the ritzy hotel room and heading into the kitchen nook to put the market bags down. "I took a quick detour on the way here so I could pick up some food. I got a chocolate cake, a bag of pears, some rice crackers, and, well, more candy. I bought things I could identify without wondering what could possibly be inside the package because I didn't want to ask anyone for assistance. I guess I'm just stubborn that way."

He walked in and sat down on the couch, watching her over his forward hunched shoulder. "Well, I can understand. You wanted to prove you could do something so simple as grocery shopping even though you're in a foreign country. Otherwise it would be like you lost at daily life." That must be a common trait among people with superior intelligence, he thought.

She cut into the cake with a faint smile. "You pretty much have me all figured out, huh?" she asked, with a questioning glance.

He shrugged ambivalently as his eyes carefully followed the knife in her hands apprehensively, ready to stop her if she came too close to cutting herself. "I have made a few educated guesses but not all of them have yet to be proven."

The corner of her lip turned up as she took a seat next to him, folded her legs, and handed him a plate with a large slice of cake on it. "Humor me." she asked in a respectable, challenging way.

He took a bite of the cake and chewed slowly as he set the paper plate to rest on his knees. He looked at the girl waiting expectantly for an answer to her plea, and instead of responding, he reached out to brush the dark, obscuring hairs away from her right eye. He lightly tucked the long strands behind her ear and lowered his hand so that his finger just barely grazed her cheek in a simple, admiring gesture. Her lips curled up into a shy smile as if to say she was humbled by the small act of affection.

"You wear contacts?" he asked, thinking about how she mentioned having bad eyesight, not realizing that he had killed the romantic moment that he wasn't even aware he provoked.

"One actually." she answered, not seeming to mind the abrupt change in the mood of the room. "My right eye is really bad but my left eye is 20/20. I originally started wearing hair over my bad eye to keep from being made fun of but I found out that I didn't have to wear my glasses if I did that because my vision would be fine using just my good eye." she said, putting her cake up to her mouth with her fingers and taking a little bite.

"But if you have a contact lens for that eye now, why do you still hide it?" he asked curiously.

"Habit. And to avoid frequent questioning from people who have never seen someone with two different colored eyes before." she said. "Why do you sit that way?" she retorted, trying to even the question tally.

"I think clearer in this position. My reasoning ability increases by forty percent." he said, shoving another plastic fork full of cake into his mouth. "And it has become habitual for me too."

She nodded and started passing her fork through her fingers as she stared intently at him. "If I ask, will you tell me about it?" she wondered cryptically.

The details of the case had clearly been on her mind for a while, as it would be on the mind of anyone who had ever attended the Wammy House, and now that she found out his position in it, the proposal for discussion was inevitable. However, he was trepid to discuss anything about it in a room that he was not familiar with. The likelihood of her being Kira was actually a bit higher than he would have liked but his gut instinct told him that he had nothing to worry about. It was undeniable though that the facts were startling: she came to Japan around the time the killings started, she is smart and most likely stealthy enough to pull off such a task, and she seems to want nothing in this world so what choice would she have but to want to make it better?

But she is not Kira, he told himself. There is too much evidence against her. Although I'm sure even if there wasn't I would still have that gut feeling. Unless it's a personal bias, he wondered, starting to debate with himself. No, I don't have personal biases, he mentally declared. If I really have somehow befriended Kira in Raito, I'd still put him in jail regardless of how much I like him as a person as I would do to her if she turned out to be Kira.

He looked over at her somberly. "I will but not here." he answered, standing up. Without saying another word, she stood up and followed him into the kitchen nook where he grabbed the rest of the cake and proceeded to walk out the door.

Silently, she followed him down the hall and into his room. She didn't feel the need to say anything to understand and he didn't think he would have to explain himself. When they were in the room, she stood in the center, looking around at the decor. "So this is an indefinitely secure room?" she asked, lowering herself down onto the couch.

"There are no cameras and no bugs. We can speak freely here." he replied, sitting down next to her and putting the cake on the table in front of them.

"So, now will you tell me about the case?" she asked, grabbing a chunk out of the cake with her hands and biting into it, cupping her other hand under her chin to catch any crumbs that would fall from her mouth.

"How about a trade?" he suggested. "For every question you have about the case I will get to ask you a question about your past since it seems to be such a neglected topic for you."

She gave him a skeptical look. "You don't talk about your past much either but I accept. However, I don't think you're really getting the benefit of the trade."

"And you are?" he asked inquisitively, trying to remind himself not to be so defensive around her even though his cautious impulse kept getting the better of him. "Why is the Kira case important to you?"

Trust, his mind pleaded.

"General fascination and curiosity." she said without even the slightest quiver or underlying emotion in her tone.

"Same here," he said, through a mouth full of cake, thankful that she had stifled his worries about her yet again.

She looked pleased. "Touche." she said, with an approving wave of her finger. "So how did you get started with this case?" she asked, eating the rest of her cake lump, appearing to not care that he was using a fork and she was using her hands.

"I started working on it alone out of interest with assistance from my partner and then. . ."

"And your partner is Quillish Wammy, am I correct?" she interjected.

"Yes, but refer to him as Watari and since you interrupted me with a question, I get to ask you how you found that out." he stated.

"Simple deduction. Continue." she said, taking a bit of chocolate frosting onto her finger and licking it off slowly.

"Then I had Watari announce me at an Interpol meeting which led to the Lind L. Taylor incident that I'm sure you hear about. . ."

"I saw it. I've been here quite a while." she said. "That was very brave of you to challenge him like that." she said with a crooked smile.

"Thank you," he replied, sincerely grateful. It wasn't very often that someone paid him a compliment on anything other than his intellect. "Although after enough thought, it was concluded that there was a very slim chance of danger." he added to try not to glorify himself. "Anyway, after that incident, a task force within the police was set up here to help me work on the case. Originally, there were many people working but now it's down to five, well, seven including me and Watari."

"Interesting," she mumbled, with a final lick of the frosting on her finger. "Your turn."

He thought for a second to pick which of the many questions running through his overactive mind he would ask first.

"Are you really from England?"

The question wasn't exactly Earth-shattering to her but it was something he had been wondering about. Children at the Wammy House came from a lot of different places but she actually spoke with an English accent.

"Well, my mom is from Ireland and my dad is from England. When I was younger I lived in Ireland until going to England to stay at the Wammy house. As far as I'm concerned, I have no homeland." She chuckled darkly. "I don't even have a real home!"

"What do you mean you don't have a home?" he asked, leaning forward.

"That's two questions in a row. It's my turn." she snapped back. He leaned back defeated but gave her a good-natured smile. It was confounding to him that he enjoyed being outsmarted by her. "Do you have any leads?"

"I am particularly confident in one person. I don't want to bore you with details." he said, absently glancing out the window.

"No. Please tell me." she said avidly. "In retrospect, I wish I hadn't gotten transferred out of the orphanage so I could help you on this case." Mentally, he snapped his fingers, wishing the same thing. She was very intelligent and he knew he could trust her and trust from him was hard to come by. Not to mention how much he would have enjoyed having her around at all hours of the day.

"Well, considering the times of the murders we discovered that Kira is a student, a clever one who hates to lose. Then Kira strategically killed using information only accessible to task force members so all the task force's families were watched. Then when Ray Penbar, one of the investigators, died, it was evident that he had been assigned to watch one of the families that Kira was in. That left us with only two households so deciding who was Kira was exceedingly easy. Even though the logical statistics aren't very high, I know I'm right."

"What- Oh wait, your turn." she said.

"What do you mean you don't have a real home?" he asked, noticing there was only one diminutive piece of cake left. He scooped it onto his fork but held it out to her, implying that she could take the fork. Instead she opened her mouth and ate the last piece off his fork like he was feeding her.

"My parents died when I was young so I don't remember Ireland very well. The Wammy House was no home for me and neither was the other school I was sent to. After I graduated from medical school, I moved into a make-shift apartment in the offices I work at. It's not personalized and I'm hardly ever there. I live in hotel rooms out of a small suitcase that holds nothing of sentimental value. And to top it all off, I have no friends, no family, and the only people I interact with are coworkers, most of whom are too intimidated by me to talk to me. I have nothing and no one." She paused and looked at him sadly. "I'm sorry I went off on a tangent. I need to learn to be quiet."

"That's all right." he said, feeling a bit closer to her. "You could say we're in a similar boat."

She moved a bit closer to him and laughed. "The Wammy House has a knack for making deranged people huh? So what do you plan to do with this suspect you have?"

"I plan to get as close to him as I can. I have already revealed my identity to him and enrolled at the same university he attends. If he knows I am L, there is nothing he can do to kill me anyway since he doesn't know my name."

"How temerarious of you." she said approvingly.

He met her eyes, searching for facetiousness. Surely no one would be crazy enough to compliment him truthfully twice in a day. Finding no mockery, he leaned his face in towards her and asked very seriously, "Why me?"

She turned her face entirely towards his so that they were staring directly at each other. "Everyday you sat out there, against the wall, calm and quiet, just thinking and I used to wonder how someone who seems to have nothing happen to them have so much to think about. You were interesting.

"I started to wonder if you liked solitude, if you liked having nothing happen because at the young age I was, I hated it with every fiber of my being. I started to notice similarities between us and I wondered if that was one of them."

She lowered her eyes to look at her dirty fingernails and chocolate covered hands. "I was afraid that if I talked to you about it, I might find out that you actually wanted to be alone and away from everyone and then you'd be mad at me for disturbing you and I really couldn't handle someone who seemed so much like me hating me. It would make me feel completely worthless. I guess I saw you as the only person who could actually be my friend. But it took until my last day there to talk to you since if you ended up not liking me it wouldn't matter because I'd be gone. So much for that, huh?" she said laughing a bit but cutting it off quickly as she raised her sleepy, half-closed eyes back to his face. "I talk too much." she said, her expression ashamed.

"You said that already and I disagree." he said. "Are you sad that it wasn't a one time event?" he asked, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear her say it anyway.

"I wish it could have been a daily event." she said smiling, taking note of the fact that they were disregarding their little game but not caring. "And I think we're here now to make up for lost time and opportunities."

It is highly unlikely that two people who haven't seen each other in over ten years and who travel all over the world should find themselves in the same city, staying in the same hotel, with their rooms just down the hall from each other. There is no way this could even be placed under consideration as a coincidence, he decided.

He put his thumb in his mouth slightly so it rested on his lower lip. "I think you're right."

"What do you think of Kira?" she asked as her eyes transfixed on what appeared to be a camera hanging from the ceiling. She pointed to it silently and looked over at him bewildered.

"They turn them off whenever someone enters." he assured her as he went about answering her question. His calm face did not change. "Kira is an egotistical person who thinks he has the God-like authority to decide who deserves to live and who deserves to die. He is also a worthy adversary at outsmarting people and tennis."

"Tennis?" she said, confused. "You sound quite chummy with Kira if you play tennis with him."

He shrugged nonchalantly. "He's a very good player. It was one of the most difficult games I'd played in years."

She laughed and rested her head against his shoulder. He looked down at her, unsure of what to do, having never been in such a position with a girl. He didn't really see what was so funny about what he said but it was nice to see her happy.

"So, are you friends with Kira?" she asked with a chuckle at the absurdity of such a thought.

He nodded. "Yes, I guess you could say that. But I see it more so as being friends with him as a normal person. My career as the detective L wants to take down Kira but I am still friends with him."

She looked up at him very closely and realized, much to her dismay, that he was telling the truth.

"I'm sorry that you aren't my first friend." he said, catching her off-guard and misinterpreting her expression.

She grinned at him, finding his innocent demeanor had to resist. "No need to apologize. I was a couple weeks late I guess."

There was short silence between them as she started walking her fingers across her legs and across his to satisfy her malcontent hands.

"Is this a date?" he asked bluntly, slicing through the quiet and surprising her enough for her head to shoot back into an upright position.

"I don't know. I've never been on one so I don't quite know what they entail." she said, looking over at him perplexed. "Let's see . . . we ate food, we talked a lot, we haven't kissed yet though." she said, racking her brain for other references to form the idea of a 'date'.

"Yes, that's true." he said, similarly analyzing what he knew of dates. "So yesterday must have been a date then. It meets the dating criteria you just established."

"I suppose it was." she said, satisfied. "I was on a date and I didn't even know it." she said, shaking her head as if she was ashamed of herself.

After looking at him for a few seconds mentally weighing probabilities in her mind, she leaned over and kissed him softly on the side of his mouth, since she could not reach any further with his bent knees ostracizing a clear path. He watched her the whole time, wondering if he should make an effort to kiss back. It was a lot harder to think once the kiss had started and before he could make a decision, she leaned back. "There." she said, confidently.

"Today is a date." he said concretely. "This social thing is easier with a rubric."

She laughed again, laying her head on his slouched shoulder, both of them knowing they would never use the word 'date' ever again in the context of their relationship. Something about it felt artificial and it didn't give the connotation of the close friendship that they were quickly developing.

"So what do you think of Kira's actions?" he said, turning his head to gaze at her face as he spoke to her. He had been wondering this for a while and he was hopeful that she would give him an answer he could accept.

"I think that as much as everyone may say they wish all the terrible people in the world should die, no one has the right to make that choice. What Kira is doing is wrong. He is human, not divine." Her eyes deliberately fluttered closed as she talked and her face became noticeably more relaxed.

He tentatively put his arm around her, remembering a movie he saw once where a guy and a girl had been in similar positions to their's and he had put his arm around her. "Are you sleepy?" he asked, stroking her hair, finding that it was a very soothing action.

"I'm always sleepy. I haven't gotten a good night sleep since I was a child in my mother's arms." she admitted, as her hands started tracing patterns on his stomach. It gave him chills he was not accustomed to.

"Ever since then, I haven't slept right. Too much on my mind. Fear of waking up with my stuff hidden, which had happened at the House before. Trying vehemently to find a cure for a patient's condition. Too much caffeine and sugar. I even went to another neurologist and he made all these suggestions on how to clear my mind and stop worrying but none of them worked." As she spoke, her voice got quieter and she sighed faintly at the relaxing motion of his hand caressing her dark locks of hair.

"You can sleep now." he offered, as her touch on him began to falter. He watched her lips part slightly to murmur some unintelligible phrase and then close again as her head fell forward a bit.

And she slept.


	4. Chapter 3: Investigative Work

_**Author's Note:** The random music references in this chapter include one of about seven Depeche Mode songs, "Bigmouth Strikes Again" by The Smiths, and "Lilian" by Depeche Mode._

_That is all. Review and I will be very happy and write faster._

Soft light streaming through the windows, the faint scent of chocolate, white cotton against her cheek, and the particle motion-stopping sound of an alarm no one had dismantled in spite of her day off.

As she gently pressed down on the off button on the clock by her ear, she lifted her head to scan the room and realized, much to her disappointment, that she was in her own hotel room, lying in her bed. It wasn't that this was an unlikely place to find her early in the morning, even though for the past few weeks she had been falling asleep in his room. Somehow, he could clear her superfluously running mind and calm her, bestowing the freedom to sleep upon her; ironic, considering his limited need for it.

She never awakened with him, a fact that was not hard to wrap her mind around since she had never woken up with anyone near her before. Even when she was at the Wammy House, she always slept in the linen closets or living rooms to avoid her roommates. She understood that she needed more sleep than he did and that he always had work to do. Usually she simply woke up in her own bed, saddened that he had brought her back there. There were some days, however, when she would wake up on his couch to the sound of softly clicking computer keys, trying desperately not to wake her but always failing. Those very rare days came about when neither of them had to work so he would let her stay in his room since no one would catch her. She would sit up on his couch, pulling the blanket he put on her around her shoulders and watch him type until he would turn around and they would share a smile. No words required.

Along with the newfound deep sleep, she had started to dream. In truth, she could never remember having a dream before, not even a vague fragment of one but now that she was properly accessing her REM cycle, she would remember having a dream most nights. She could not recall locations, characters, or even plots but she would wake up with a distinct feeling. So far every feeling had been near euphonious finally giving her a basis of understanding as to why someone would actually enjoy sleeping aside from the obvious reason of being tired. These feelings did, however, make her wonder what was so astounding about the actual dream that caused her to feel this way. She couldn't imagine.

He didn't turn off my alarm, she thought to herself, trying to roll over and go back to sleep even though she knew she wouldn't be able to. It shouldn't be his responsibility to know my schedule anyway, she thought, mentally scolding herself for putting a job that should be hers into his hands.

She glanced at the clock to see that it was six thirty in the morning and after tossing and turning for what felt like centuries but was actually mere minutes, she gave up and got out of bed

--

Outside her hotel door he could hear the throbbing beat of music, more comparable to a night club than a jazz lounge or a pop station on the radio. He had forgotten that it was her day off and he had been kicking himself for not remembering to turn off her alarm last night once it occurred to him in the middle of a task force meeting. Because of him, she logically has been awake for hours with nothing to do so he sent the task force home early to go see her.

Even though she didn't know what time he was coming, the door was unlocked so he walked in without calling her first. The music sounded even stranger now that he was submersed in the noise. He had recalled hearing something like it before but not during his time in Japan. He heard a muffled, "Mm?" and turned around to see her sitting cross-legged on the kitchen countertop with a bowl in her hands.

Still chewing her food, she motioned for him to come and sit next to her so he awkwardly climbed up on the counter and curled into his signature position. She held the bowl out to him so he could see the pear slices inside and he took one.

"What music is this?" he asked curiously, furrowing his brows as he tried to hear the lyrics.

"British bands from the 80s. New wave-ish stuff. I know we were only kids when it was popular and it's kind of strange but I still like it. Most of these bands are still making new music to this day." she said, bobbing her head. He wasn't quite sure what construed this music as 'new wave' especially since, if it's been being composed since the 80s it can't be very new. He listened closely to find that the lyrics were blatantly sexual but with using religion as a metaphor. Strange.

Suddenly she made an exaggerated movement like she had just been shocked by a bolt of lightning and proclaimed, "It's my theme song!" in an uncharacteristically perky voice.

They both got quiet, listening intently to the lyrics. It appeared to be about someone named 'Bigmouth' who was making a comeback of sorts. She must think of herself as being a bigmouth, he thought. Well, she does talk a lot sometimes but I haven't seen any problem with it.

"Do you really believe you 'have no right to take your place with the human race?'" he asked gravely.

She shrugged, more unsure of her reasoning than whether or not she was right. "Don't you feel that way? Every time you look down on the world, don't you see how everyone has a place? Everyone has someone. Everyone has a life built up that involves more than just themselves. But then there are people like us, independents by choice and not exclusion until our self-induced lack of social skills cause us to be excluded. To be human is to need other humans. Therefore, are we human? We aren't exactly part of that community."

He put his thumb up to his mouth and nibbled the nail in thought. "I guess I can connect. You make an interesting point." he said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye to see her face soften.

"Thanks." she replied smiling as she held the pear bowl out to him again.

The song ended and a new one started. This one had a dance beat like the first one and it was about a man who had fallen in love with a girl named Lilian who broke his heart, in a most vicious way apparently as the singer kept mentioning pain and misery. This seems to happen to a lot of men, he observed, looking suspiciously over at his barefooted companion. Could she also be like the girl in the song? Heartless? Messing with my head? If she was wouldn't I be able to tell? Some of the most intelligent people have been brought to their knees by members of the opposite sex.

As he was contemplating this phenomenon, she shoved a whole pear slice into her mouth in a very undignified manner and then licked the juice off her finger tips. The spit-soaked fingers were then wiped on the sleeve of the shirt she had worn yesterday and never bothered to change out of. Somehow this made him feel better.

The jingling ring tone of his phone interrupted the beat of the song and caused them both to stare at his pant's pocket.

"Watari?" she asked, mouth full of pear.

He took out his phone and looked at the display screen to verify her hypothesis. "Correct." he said, opening the phone and holding the top half of it with just his index finger and thumb. "What is it, Watari?" he asked. After a short pause he replied with, "Keep him there for five minutes and then send him in. Goodbye." He closed the phone and looked over at her captivated face. "I have some work to do in my room. This shouldn't take more than twenty minutes at the most." he said, hopping off the counter.

"Wait, who are you seeing?" she asked zealously. She was not going to let him get away with being so cryptic.

"A . . . friend." he said, a little annoyed with himself that he hadn't chosen a different word. She would know who it was instantaneously and have some strong opinion regarding the meeting.

"You're seeing Kira?" she exclaimed in both fright and exuberance, jumping off the counter so spastically he was sure she would fall. "Can I come?" she asked.

He wasn't surprised that she asked considering her fascination with the case but he did not want to put her in such a dangerous situation. If I were to introduce her to Raito, he would suspect her of being a detective since I could only give her fake name and there would be no other logical reason for me to be spending time with a girl. And if he really is Kira and thus views her as a threat, he will set out to find out her real name so he can kill her. And now with this second Kira who doesn't even need a name to kill, she is in even more danger if either of the Kiras see her. The first one would attempt to convince the second to kill her to further their work and the second would kill her on the spot if word gets out that she was with L.

"How could I explain you to him so that we could discuss the case as we normally do? It would not be possible." he said convinced.

"I could hide in your bedroom and listen from there." she suggested, determined to not let the topic go.

"You don't speak Japanese. I don't know what use it would be to do that." he answered, his hand now on the doorknob counting the seconds in his head so as not to be late.

"Yes, but I could see him. I'd know who to avoid. It's a practical way for me to be safer. You know I will be quiet in there. He won't notice me. I promise." she said earnestly.

She would be safe as long as she doesn't decide to take the case into her own hands after knowing the most probable Kira's identity, he realized, warming up to the idea. She seems more interested in knowing the facts than actually wanting to work on the case anyway.

He also had a feeling that she would follow him regardless of the answer he gave so he would have no choice but to accept.

"Okay." he said, begrudgingly giving in. "But the information you get cannot leave the confines of your mind."

"Of course."

--

Hiding in the safety of his bedroom, she waited patiently for the right moment to open the door. She had been there for a few minutes and after looking around the room and finding a few pairs of handcuffs that she was sure no detective would need to be equipped with, she began listening in on them with her ear pressed against the door, hearing snippets of Japanese that meant nothing to her.

When they sounded so engrossed with the conversation that no mild sound could distract them, she grasped the door handle firmly and began to pull it down. At such a slow pace, no noise was produced. When she was met with resistance against pulling it any further down, she gave a gentle push on the door to open it a minuscule amount, just enough to see out. So rapidly she could not even process it, she lost her grip on the doorframe with her other hand and overestimated how much pressure was needed to open the door. Using a lifted knee against the door was evidently unnecessary. She didn't get a chance to see Kira's face before she went tumbling out of the bedroom and into the living room.

The two guys stared down at her, sprawled out of the floor. She looked up at the older of the two and realized that he had displayed no reaction to her fall. He was mentally forming a plan.

Standing up in spite of her rug-burned knees, she casually extended a hand to the boy next to him. Kira.

"Raito, I'd like to introduce you to Kit. Kit, this is Raito." he said, purposely not saying how he knew either of them and saying everything in English. He wanted Raito to know that she didn't speak Japanese in hopes that he would realize that she couldn't understand anything that they were saying while she was in the other room.

"Nice to me you, Raito." she said, shaking his hand and smiling like it was the most normal thing in the world to fall out of a room before meeting someone.

"Likewise, Kit." he said, smiling back. She could see the insincerity and extravagantly pompous confidence behind the sparkling white teeth. She took in his eyes that were clearly hiding everything they could hold, his immaculate clothing and hair that pointed to meticulous attention to detail and a financially well-situated upbringing, and the fact that he was exactly the age and social status she was expecting of Kira.

She didn't like him at all.

She must be another detective, Raito thought, trying to dazzle his way into trust. Her suspicious smile back at him proved that his charm wasn't working. She looks a little like that Naomi Misora, only European. If she's as smart as her than I may have another problem on my hands, he concluded, examining her appearance.

She was wearing a white, button-down shirt that was wrinkled and much too big for her, as if she had taken it from a boy after he had worn it for a week straight without washing or ironing it. A loosened black tie was around her neck serving no purpose in looking professional. She also wore a dark blue skirt that fell to her knees and was not wearing socks, shoes, or slippers. Her hair, essentially black in color at present even though it was probably lighter when it was cleaner, was a total mess to the point that it even concealed one of her eyes. She is wearing the same colors as L, Raito noticed, finding it to be quite bizarre. Actually, there seemed to be a lot of similarities between them. Could she be his girlfriend, he wondered. He nearly burst out laughing at the thought.

"Well, I have to go now, Ryuzaki." Raito announced in English so as not to raise the curiosity of the potential detective.

"Okay. I will see you around campus, Raito." he replied.

"Nice to meet you, Kit." Raito added, giving her a slight wave, intentionally being irritatingly friendly.

"Same here." she answered mimicking his cheerful tone.

The second Raito was out the door, she turned to the detective next to her and declared unequivocally, "He's Kira. No doubts in my mind."

He raised an eyebrow and stuck his thumbnail in his mouth. "What evidence have you gathered from this brief meeting that makes you so confident?" he asked, not willing to dismiss someone who agrees with him so deeply but wanting to know if she could see something he couldn't.

"It's the look in his eyes. He was judging me, searching to see if I was taking notes on him for an investigation, trying to cover up any clue that might leak through his expression or his posture."

"You're saying that you knew because of his eyes?" he summarized disbelievingly.

"Well, they are menacing looking, you have to admit." she said with a straight face.

He stared at the floor, pondering what she had gathered for a minute and then looked up at her again. "How could you make such a deduction based on just his eyes? That's hardly an accurate way of telling someone's intentions."

"Well, then call it women's intuition." she said with her hands up, tiring from his interrogation.

"That's not an accurate form of measurement either." he riposted.

"Of course it is!" she said, defensively.

"Prove your theory then." he challenged. "Why is there no man's intuition?"

"The brain of a women functions differently than the brain of a man. The corpus callosum, which is the part of the brain that allows one to alternate between your left and right brain, is more defined in women than in men. This means they can easily think both logically and creatively and combine those two thinking methods into a more precise deduction. Men, in contrast, are more focused and can sometimes overlook the finer points of whatever aspect they are less concerned with."

He thought about this for a second, his vague memories of learning about parts of the brain coming back to him and he nodded. "Well if that's the case maybe I should have more women detectives working with me on this case, since I currently have none. Have you ever thought of forsaking neurology for detective work . . . again?"

"Not until recently. I'd really enjoying working with you and honestly I don't think I could tolerate having you out of my life." she said like she was idealistically working it out in her mind as she was speaking.

"Then why not?" he said encouragingly, not noticing, or simply disregarding, the uncertainty in her voice.

She looked at him, struck profoundly with grief. "Oh L, I couldn't." she murmured pitifully.

He was shocked that she had referred to him by a name, his real one at that. "Well, maybe you could still do your work and I could do mine but that we'd go to the same places. You travel everywhere alone and I travel everywhere alone so we could travel alone together."

Her heavy eyes lowered further until they were practically slits, threatening to spawn tears from his determined tone. But she forced an asymmetrical smile anyway, since it was the best she could achieve, as she wrapped her arms around his neck in a tight hug. He placed his hands on her waist, confused by her response. Was she agreeing to the proposal? Was she politely declining?

She loosened her hold on his neck as she tilted her head towards his face, kissing him in a powerful way that was almost chilling. She resonated a sense of gloom as her hands moved onto his face, not wanting to release him, not willing to give up what they had built up in her time there.

But, in her mind, the odds were against them. How could she convince her superordinate to let her move her entire practice to Japan? And how long would he even be here before he would have to move onto another case? They be back to where they started with her stuck in this hotel, half a world away from him. The kind of luck that would be required to make such a living situation manageable is hardly ever given to people like me, she thought. I am not human.

She pulled her face away but left her hands where they were, delicately stroking his soft, pale cheeks as she murmured in a haunting chant, "If only, if only."


	5. Chapter 4: Case Closed

_**Author's Note:** I read a John Grisham book today so I had to read three Edgar Allen Poe short stories to feel better. I apologize to anyone who likes John Grisham._

_Anyway, I should note that this chapter has a touch of pervert-ness but I haven't chapter the rating. Tell me if I should because I don't want to get in trouble. Also, there's a spoiler of L's real name which mostly everyone seems to know anyway. It's at the end. _

_**Important:** If you would prefer an ambiguously happily ending (even though I think I may have gotten a little corny) do not read the last chapter; stop with this one. If you don't mind the sad truth, read the epilogue that I will write sometime over the next couple of weeks._

--

He hadn't seen her yesterday due to a task force meeting that took over twelve hours, leaving most of the members asleep on the floor, aside from Yagami who was determined to not miss a single discovery or accusation from him and to keep Matsuda from complaining too much. When he had called her to say he wouldn't make it, she had responded with, "I would have liked to see you but I understand. Good luck. I'll see you tomorrow," with her usual optimistic but not ebullient attitude that radiated naturally in his presence. Thus, he wasn't prepared for what he was met with when he went to see her the next day . . .

He lifted his hand to her door but before his fist could make contact, the door swung open. She stood in the doorway, her arm languidly slumped against the frame until eventually her entire body fell against it as well, her face overcome with consternation. Her eyes were half-lidded, as usual, but were framed with dark circles that gave her a long-deceased appearance. She must not have slept last night, he concluded. She held an ornery expression but it was more pathetic than intimidating and her hair was all messily clipped up behind her head except for her bangs which continued to serve their purpose of covering her lime green, handicapped eye.

Aside from her face, he also noted a idiosyncratic difference in her clothing as she was clad in just a white tank top and black shorts. And socks, matching perfectly in color to her hidden eye with one pulled up to her knee and one lazily falling down around her ankle. It was honestly the most exposed he had ever seen her and this made him wonder. He would have thought they were her pajamas but he was sure that she didn't have specific clothing for sleep. Something was wrong.

"Hello." he said, staring a bit too intently at her attire before pulling his eyes up to her gloomy face.

Instead of verbally responding, she reached out into the hallway and grasped the front of his shirt in her hands, pulling him towards her until their lips met with a contusing force, just missing a nose collision by barely a centimeter. There was a ferocity and passion in her affections that seemed almost uncharacteristic but felt more like a catharsis than a drastic personality shift. Were these pent up emotions she has had, he wondered as she started to walk backwards into the room, pulling him in with her. He had remembered reading a similar sequence of events in a novel once: girl at the door wearing pajama-like clothes, fervent kissing, the guy getting pulled into her house. Does she want to have sex?

She lead him over to the couch, not breaking the kiss as she walked, her eyes clenched so tightly closed that it created creases on her forehead. He kept a close watch behind her the whole time so that she wouldn't trip over any pieces of furniture she may have forgotten about. When they got to the couch, she sat him down, not giving him a chance to curl into his usual position before she laid down on the couch with her head in his lap and tucked her legs into her chest, making her look vulnerable.

"What's wrong?" he asked, studying her carefully for signs of crying and finding none, the fact that she had changed from being passionate to aloof in mere seconds not fazing him in any fashion.

"My patient died yesterday. He was just about to go into surgery and he had a stroke." she said, her words falling out of her mouth in an almost slurred manner as she stared hard in no determinate direction, her eyes, or eye, looking glazed and bare.

"How old was he?" he asked, wondering if she mentioned a stroke to avoid any Kira controversy.

"Just turned fifty. Quite young for a stroke but with such a mutation, the odds are increased. He was a widower. He has a daughter who's twenty-five. I had to tell her the news. I usually do because the other doctors claim that I have less feelings than them so it will affect me less."

He was twenty-five when he had a child, he noted for no reason outside of the need to calculate. He was our age.

"Were you close with him?" he asked, trying to console her with questions and concern.

She shrugged. "Not any more than any other patient I've had."

"Does a death always hit you this hard?"

"No. Death just rolls off my back since I am around it so often. There's truth in what the other doctors say. I mean, it's sad, yes, but I never am in this kind of mood."

He started stroking her hair as she continued to stay silent with her eyes vacant of emotion. Even her hands weren't moving, something he had never seen before.

"When do you have to go back to England?" he asked solemnly. It was clear that this all had to do with her leaving. The impassioned kiss to try to imprint a memory, the depressed look on her face and her exanimate hands; she was afraid to leave.

"Tomorrow at six in the morning." she sighed, now turning to look at him. "I tried to catch the doctors before they could book my tickets but I was too late. They already set up a patient for me in London."

He didn't respond. They had less than twenty-four hours before she would be getting on that plane. He flatted the frizzy hairs on her head that had escaped the clip with every long caress as she stared up at him. After she didn't say anything for a few minutes, he tucked her bangs behind her eyes so he could see all of her. She didn't object.

"I think I love you." he said, feeling that now was a good time to express the outcome of another case he had been working on almost as long as the Kira case.

"You think?" she asked curiously, wondering why he had made his feelings sound so tentative.

"Yes. Actually, I am quite sure. Although I have no prior knowledge of the actual feelings one is instilled with in such a state, I took to looking up the word and studying some research materials to get a basic understanding."

The corners of her lips turned up a bit. In spite of his amazingly accurate intuition, he still sought out the facts.

"Now while most of the research materials seemed overly romanticized or based purely on sexual attraction, I did find some valuable theories to explain how people connect when they possess the feeling of love outside of the so-called 'chemistry' of pheromones. The one I thought was most effective broke romantic love down into seven different ways of connecting: intellectual, emotional, psychological, moral, social, cultural, and physical. We definitely connect on an intellectual and psychological basis and emotionally I have felt different around you than anyone else, like figuring out a difficult problem and having everything add up correctly, so I'm thinking that may have to do with love. Morally, we seem to be on the same page with our ideas on Kira so I'm hoping this would translate to at least an understanding if not an agreement in other areas of life." She nodded. "Social connection would probably imply friendship which we have certainly developed and culturally, our backgrounds are a little different but we lived under the same environment for a while and we both know English so I don't see a problem there."

"I don't speak Japanese." she stated factually for no real reason outside of the need to say something.

"Well, you speak Gaelic, don't you? And didn't you tell me once that you also learned Spanish, French, and German while going through your schooling?"

"Ja." she answered.

"So you know some languages I don't and I know some you don't. Maybe it's even better this way because we could be interpreters for each other if the occasion ever arises."

She nodded again.

"And physically, I've always liked the way you look but a strong sexual attraction became more apparent to me when you answered the door looking like that and then pulled me into the room so vigorously." he said, without an ounce of shame. "Therefore, I have concluded that I am in love with you. What do you think?"

"I think you're a closet pervert." she said, smiling. "And that I love you."

Simultaneously, she bent her body up at the waist as he ducked his head down until they were locked in a deep embrace, intense but not rushed or working towards another goal. He wondered what it would be like to not get to taste in this way for months. The thought was saddening. When they pulled away, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her ear against his ribcage, hearing the heartbeat that she had always noted as being a bit faster than the normal heartbeat.

"Don't go back to England." he said, resting his chin on her head and letting out a slight sigh as her hands became active again and started moving around on his chest in a manner that she didn't even realize as being torturous for him.

"I can't." she insisted. "I have a patient already. I have a practice. I . . ." her voice trailed off and her hands paused. "I have nothing there for me but work. And the only thing that has ever mattered to me outside of work is here." she admitted, almost embarrassed.

"I am building a headquarters right now, here in Japan and it has more floors than I could ever need. You have a patient waiting for you and I can't deny them their right to the best care they can possibly receive, however, when their treatment is done, I would want nothing more than for you to move here. You could have an entire floor to yourself so it wouldn't be too much like we were living together unless you want it to be and no task force members will be allowed on your floor so they won't even be aware of your presence. I could provide travel; the building has helicopters so you easily travel to neighboring countries for patients if you have to but you won't be able to go around the world for cases like before. I'm sure you wouldn't let me provide other amenities for you but I won't accept rent from you since my payment will be your company. And I promise that if I do have to leave Japan, I will always provide a place for you wherever I am. What do you say?"

"You're talking as much as I do." she joked, burying her face in the space where his shoulder met his neck like a child. "The only reason I traveled to my patients were because I had nothing to tie me down to one place. Now I think it's safe to say that I do."

"I'll write to you every three days to give you updates on the building's development and plans." he promised.

"And I'll tell you how close I am to getting home." she said, tracing his collarbone with her fingers. "But could you make me another promise?"

"Yes." he said instantly, for once without hardly any thought.

"Could you be there when I wake up tomorrow?" she asked, placing a light kiss on the side of his neck. She wanted to know what it was like to have someone right there with you from the break of daylight. Before her parents died, they would be with her but she was still too young to grasp all the meaning behind it. She wanted to know what that kind of security felt like when you are next to someone you love in the morning and they aren't in another room or immersing themselves in work.

"I'll also take you to the airport."

--

"Kassie," she said, her arms wrapped around him in a goodbye hug as they stood in the airport, trying to tune out the sounds of people shouting, luggage being thrown about, and random beeping noises that could be coming from anywhere. "My name is Kassie Malins, spelled with a K and an IE and not short for Kassandra. I suspect that the unusual spelling has to do with the fact that my dad's name was Kevin."

"Kassie." he repeated to himself, quiet so that no one could overhear. "I like that. Would you like to know my name?" he asked. It was only fair that he should tell her. Even though no one else knew his name, he trusted her. She would never tell under any circumstances.

"You don't have to if you don't want to." she replied, running her hands down his back. "I know you don't want anyone to know."

Quickly taking note of the security cameras in the room, he turned thirty degrees to the left, taking her with him. He then subtly reached into his pocket and pulled out a very small, folded piece of paper, held clutched in the center of his palm so that it could not be seen from the outside view of his hand, and slid his hand into her back pocket, kissing her as he did it to make everything seem normal. After a little while, he took out his hand but left the paper behind.

"You know a lot of people don't like to see that kind of thing in public." she stated, shaking her head at him. "The lady over there gave you a pretty nasty look."

He leaned down to her ear and whispered, "There's a piece of paper in your pocket now. Don't open it until you are alone in your apartment."

She didn't have to ask what was written on it. "And I thought you were just overcome with the desire to touch my butt." she said smiling. "I won't open the paper but don't lose my address."

"I'll write to you tomorrow since it will probably take a while for you to get the letter. International mail can be difficult." he told her.

"I don't mind." she said, twisting his hair around her fingers. "I can try to be patience. I guess I'll have to be. Otherwise I may go crazy. I'm already feeling homesick and I haven't even left!"

"You'll be back soon enough." he assured her. "For now, you need to focus on curing that patient in London."

"Good point." she noted as the clock behind her caught her eye. "I am exactly two minutes and twenty-three seconds away from missing my plane."

"Then you better hurry." he said, letting go of her only to have her practically knock him over as she jumped back into his arms and kissed him good-bye.

"You're going to have to run to catch it." He said, a little dazed as she leaned away.

"I'm going to have to run to keep from staying." she said laughing. "Good-bye!" she exclaimed as she took off towards the terminal.

He waved back at her feeling like something was missing until she turned around and shouted, "I love you," before gracefully tripping over a deserted suitcase.

And he knew that they were going to be fine.

--

Feeling the tiring effects of jet-lag to the nth degree from her wonderful eighteen hour long odyssey, she stumbled up the stairs to her apartment that now felt like foreign territory. Funny how the walls seemed so much closer, more suffocating. She fumbled with her key, remembered the strange feeling of cold metal as opposed to a plastic card.

The apartment looked so much more plain than it ever had before. Useless. Empty.

Throwing down her suitcase and plopping down on her couch, she took the piece of paper out of her pocket and read what was written on it, a grin creeping across her face.

_L Lawliet_.


	6. Epilogue: The Aftermath

_**Author's Note:** **THIS ONE IS IMPORTANT GUYS!** This is the end. It would have been out sooner but I have had finals. It's sad and I wanted it to be a happy ending (for once) but that would be nearly impossible with the way the actual story of _Death Note_ goes and I refuse to change major events of someone else's plot unless it's clearly AU._

_Now, I have been toying with the possibility of kind of an ending one-shot. "Sugar-Coated: The Final Slice." And it would be happier. However, every time I try to plan it in my head, it becomes dirty. I'm just a pervert. But anyway, I'd like feedback on this: Yes? No? Dirty? Clean? Mildly suggestive? AU? Well, it'd have to be AU but you get the picture._

_And whoa, there are a lot of L x OC stories now. When I posted "Sugar-Coated" there were practically none._

_Warning: Spoilers if you haven't read chapter 58. I'd assume you all have._

_Credit to The Cure for "Love Song". It's one of my favorite love songs (well, duh)._

--

_Whenever I'm alone with you, you make me feel like I am home again._

_Whenever I'm alone with you, you make me feel like I am whole again._

The almost melancholy vocals of "Love Song" sounded through her apartment as she analyzed and re-analyzed an MRI of her patient taken that morning, tracing the lines of the scan with her fingers. Work was a method of escapism but the song was making the effort fruitless. It had been a three week duration since she had received his last letter and this irked her in a way nothing else ever had. Unlike most people, when he said he'd send a letter every three days, he meant it, never off by a single day unless the mailman was getting lazy. But this wasn't a one or two day delay; this was three solid weeks.

She found herself glancing over at the mail slot in her door every few seconds and then looking back at the clock to see how soon the mail would be coming. She had made up her mind the second she had woken up from another restless night of sleep - things just weren't the same without him- that if a letter did not come today, she was going to take drastic action. He is working on a case that could easily get him killed! And if he was killed, there would be no way for her to know.

_Whenever I'm alone with you, you make me feel like I am young again._

_Whenever I'm alone with you, you make me feel like I am fun again._

She knew what she would do if there wasn't a letter. Going all the way to Japan wouldn't make any sense because she would have no clue where to look. She would start with the hotel they had both been at but she already knew that would be wasted effort. The headquarters he had been building has been completed for quite a while and he had been staying there. Even though it was done, she couldn't move in because her patient's malady turned out to be more complicated than her coworkers had made it seem. She didn't even know where the headquarters was! It was an unmarked, anonymous building that looked like every other big building in the Kanto region. She very well couldn't search every one.

Reports on a detective named L had not faltered, however. He was still thriving and working to solve this case according to every cheery bimbo on the daily news. But that was what made it weird. L was in the news. For a while, while she had been receiving letters from him, he was not mentioned at all. Now, all of a sudden, he has press attention. The L she knew would not want attention to his work unless it would have a specific benefit to the case.

_However far away, I will always love you._

_However long I stay, I will always love you._

If there wasn't a letter, she was going to the Wammy House. In the event of L's death, they would be the only ones who would actually get a notice regarding it. They would need a new detective to take over.

She shivered. A new L. One that must have already taken over if it's true that he is gone.

She glanced upward at a shelf that hung above her head, into continents within arm's length while she sat at the desk below. Along the shelf were his letters, hidden in plain view, each one folded into its original envelope and each envelope written in a different hand with a different return address, stamped from a different place somewhere in Japan. The Japanese origin was the only cohesive thread between the varying envelopes aside from the destination and name of the receiver, Kit Carlisle. In spite of the envelope, every letter began with the words, "Dear Kassie," and ended with a gothic L. As the first letter described, "It doesn't feel right to try to see you any other way and I'm sure you wouldn't like me to hide myself either." It was a statement that would be too vague for any other reader to unerringly interpret what he meant.

_Whatever words I say, I will always love you._

_I will always love you._

The song's ominous juxtaposition to her worries over his possible death made her thankful that it had ended. But her brief moment of comfort was harshly interrupted by the sound of a stack of mail hitting the floor of her plain, lonely living room.

With a slow pace, she approached the letters, stalking them like prey that she was more afraid of than they were of her and bent down with shaking hands, grasping the entire pile and rapidly flicking each letter onto the floor as she skimmed the envelope covers.

Nothing.

Grabbing a handful of cash from her suitcase that she never unpacked and shoving it in her pocket, she ran out of the building finding herself becoming very religious in spite of her generally agnostic, spiritual beliefs as she prayed with every step that she had been wrong.

--

Brick-walled and cathedral-looking, in spite of being an orphanage, was always the impression the building gave to an onlooker unaware of what lurked inside; brilliant minds, destined to change the world with their trade, many that will achieve a similar level of famous to the one she was to inquire about.

Approaching an elderly receptionist in the lobby of the Wammy House, she tried desperately to draw up a memory of the women and realized just how little she did interact with people during her time there. It wasn't like she ever had to report to the receptionist because of visitors and she spent most of her free time at the house, time not spent on learning, either stealing food from the cafeteria, hiding in the linen closet, or wandering around the fields when they were empty trying to catch sight of a certain nameless boy. In fact, other than the faces and aliases of her sadistic roommates and her companion, of course, the only people she could remember from the house were Roger and 'Watari.'

"Hello. May I help you?" the women asked.

"Possibly." she answered glumly. "I used to live here and I was wondering if I could find out some information regarding another past resident. He's a friend of mine but we seem to have lost contact and I was wondering if his current address was on file because he moves around a lot so I send all my mail to him to this mailbox that he has to travel to get to but it can't be too far from where he's living logically because that would be a severe inconvenience and I've sent him mail but I haven't gotten any responses for weeks so I'm convinced that he changed his mail address . . ." She was cut off by the receptionist holding up her hand to silence her causing her to realize that she sounded vaguely stalker-like even though if she had mentioned who the friend is, all the secrecy with locations and mailboxes would have made worlds more sense.

"What is your name?" the women asked, turning to face her computer with her fingers hovering above the keys.

Trick question.

"Kit." she said, rocking back and forth on her heels nervously. If he were here, he'd try to steady her so she wouldn't fall.

The receptionist put her hands down and looked at her with a critical eye. She looked like a former resident of the kids training to be detectives. They all had a tendency to be a little strange. She was mildly-disheveled, wrinkled clothes and messy hair, a little pudgy from snacking, and was dressed in a simple turtleneck and pants, completely black, something that she had never done before but was chosen based on her expectations. Her neighbors she had passed by on her way out of her building had assumed that she was going to a funeral. The closer she got to the House, the more she believed that she was.

"You're Kit?" she asked, not really doubting her but not completely sure yet, even though security was supposed to be high around the orphanage during such a time. "Do you have proof?"

She pulled a driver's license out of her pocket, a fairly obsolete tool since she seldom drove and did not own a car even though she could afford one. Her lifestyle just never made a car seem like a practical purchase even though a license was a practical tool for things other than driving such as convincing people that her name was Kit and proving that she really was older than nineteen even though she didn't look it.

"Kit Carlisle." the women read out loud. "Hm, I wonder who came up with that one," she mumbled to herself and she handed the license back to her. "As it just so happens I have a letter for a Kit Carlisle. I was told that you would be coming here soon looking for something and I was told that the letter would answer all your questions."

The women unlocked a small safe under her desk and exacted a letter, sealed and addressed to Kit Carlisle and postmarked in Japan on the day she left for England but somehow containing no return address.

"Thank you." she said, shakingly reaching for the letter and stroking it like a pet once it was in her possession.

Without saying another word, she walked past the desk and headed for the nearest door that would lead her to the fields and, specifically, that one particular place against the building where they met.

--

_Dear Kassie,_

_I sincerely hope you never have to read this letter. If you are, it is because I have died while working on the Kira case before you could move here and you cleverly knew where to go looking for a reason to why I haven't written to you, just as I had predicted._

_I must ask you to not go after Kira even though you are well aware of who he is and I'm sure you could find him quickly if you set your mind to it. You should not put your life in danger for the sake of avenging me. That would be the last thing I would want to happen to you. As you know, I have successors prepared to take on the case in the event of my death and the job should be left up to them. Please keep yourself safe and away from Raito and, if at all possible, avoiding going on international television broadcasts simply because there is still a chance that he suspects you of being a detective or a confidante of mine and what with Misa's ability, even with your name, you aren't safe._

_Enclosed you will find three keys. The one with the address on it will lead you to the headquarters and the other two have various codes on them. They can be used to find your floor in the headquarters. Whether or not you decide to go is your choice. I understand if you do not wish to._

_And also, in case I forget to mention this before you read this letter, I just want you to know that I accidently touched Misa's butt while trying to steal her cell phone before she was arrested. I should have told you when it happened but I forgot so I thought I should at least mention it now because that seems like the kind of thing you should tell the one you are with. I apologize and hope you are smiling at me in spite of things because you think this is an odd thing to mention in such a letter._

_Kassie, I wish you the absolute best in life even though I regrettably cannot be a part of it and I want you to know that I am 100 sure that I love you._

_- L_

--

She wasn't sure how long she sat against that building. Minutes? Hours? Days? It seemed like an eternity. And her eyes hurt. They stung like she had been rubbing them all day and caused the back of her head to thump with every beat of her heart. And her face was wet. And the wet was all over her hands and the sleeves of her shirt and even her pants. It was the first time she could remember crying.

She did not like crying. It was starting to make her feel sick and no matter how hard she cried, she knew there was no way he was going to come back. No way he could walk around from behind the building and tell her it was all a scam to fool Kira. Even if he fed the lie that L is dead to the world, he would never do it to her. And there was no logical reason to proclaim himself dead anyway. A new L has risen up in hopes that no one will notice a difference.

Suddenly her senses started coming back to her and she found that it was making her angry. I'm alive, she thought disdainfully. I can still feel that it's chilly outside today and smell the grass that has just been mowed and yet now I'm trying to remember what exactly my motivation for staying alive was before him. I don't think I had one. I think I just thought it was better to be sure of life than unsure of death, however if it happened to come, I wouldn't mind. Does this mean I have even less motivation now?

She knew she was slipping into dangerous territory: A question of what happens after death. When I die, will I see him again? Or will nothing happen? Is there a place to travel to or is that just an idea fabricated by naive humans to give us a sense of comfort?

Then she realized that she wasn't alone. Kneeling in the ground not far from her was a young boy of about thirteen and she could not for the life of her (whatever exactly this thing we call life is) remember when he had taken up a spot outside with her. He had hair that looked almost white with the sun beating down on the fine strands and he was dressed in white as well. His index finger on his right hand was caught twirling his hair as he worked on a puzzle that had white pieces too.

Something about this was eerie to her. The white, it was almost, dare she think it, _angelic_. The boy was white like an angel and doing a puzzle, playing like he used to play with his sugary foods.

But there was something wrong with this picture. The boy looked annoyed and cold, unlike a blessed being and more harsh than her deceased companion. And his total obliviousness to her crying was not the behavior she would be expecting of someone who would come to help her. Even though she was aware that she was thinking crazy, she was still hurt he didn't ask if she was okay.

Slow and trembling, she stood up and walked around the boy who did not lose his concentration with the task at hand. She stood behind him and realized that in the corner of the puzzle was a black part that was unable to be identified without another piece. The unknown blob annoying her, she scanning the pieces on the ground for one that had black on it discovering the piece behind the boy's feet where he would not have noticed it. She picked up the piece and tapped the boy's shoulder a few times so he would turn around.

"This was behind you. It goes right there." she said, pointing to the empty spot on the puzzle board. He nodded, took the piece, and placed it in the frame. Sure enough, it fit and now she could see that the black part was actually the letter L. Another tear fell down her cheek and the boy did not thank her.

"Kit. Oh, it's good that you two have already met." spoke a voice to her right. She looked and saw an older man coming towards the boy in white and herself, the girl in black. Standing by his side was a boy about the age of fifteen with blonde hair and a chocolate bar in his hand, dressed in black like her although he didn't seem to have a reason outside of looking tough.

"Hello Roger," she said, extending her hand to him. "It has been a long time."

"Yes, the last time I saw you, you were only a child. Although I was expecting you." he said sadly. "I am sorry for your loss, our loss. I hear you two were quite close. During both of your times here you never seemed to have anyone to spend time with but I'm glad that you two did."

She decided not to correct him to spare him the lengthy story of her relationship with the estranged man. "Yes."

Roger then turned to the boy in white. "Near, did you introduce yourself to her?"

The boy shook his head without looking up. "She was crying quite a lot." he said almost accusingly.

"Well, Kit, this is Near and this boy is Mello." he said, gesturing to the blonde boy.

She extended her hand to Mello and he shook it and mumbled a slightly uncomfortable, "hi" before taking a loud bite from his chocolate bar.

"These are L's successors. I thought it would be important that you meet them so you would know who is going to be taking over his work and be assured that the case is in able hands."

She looked at him flabbergasted. "But then who's using the L name now?"

Roger sighed. "We don't know."

She looked down at the little blonde boy and then looked over at the even smaller white-haired boy. It was like breaking him down into parts. The blonde boy had his love of sweets and looked like he would take risks. The white boy was his cautious side and his stoicism to an extreme with hands that liked to play and build. And they both had his intelligence.

Against her will, she started to weep, Near now putting his puzzle on hold to look over at her. Bending down a bit, she wrapped her arms around Mello in a tight hug. He let out a strangled noise that made Roger wonder if he was having trouble breathing.

"Thank you." she said, crying harder now.

"You're . . . welcome?" Mello choked out a little confused.

She let go of him and ran over to Near, sitting down on the ground and wrapping her arms around him this time.

"Thank you." she repeated again.

Near nodded and brushed off his shoulder once she let go. Apparently she had gotten it wet with her tears.

Clutching the envelope containing his final letter and the keys in her hands, she ran out of the fields and past the gates. She could hear Roger calling out her 'name' behind her but she did not stop. She wasn't sure where she was going to go. Maybe ride the train for hours until her tears dried and then go home: home to the generic apartment, the thing she called her home even if it held no homely feelings, her home before she had actually found her real home with him. But that home didn't exist anymore.

--

"She's a strange person." Mello remarked, still standing next to Roger outside. "Why did she just run off like that?" he asked, turning to the older man for an answer.

"She wasn't just friends with L." Near stated, twirling his hair around and around until it tugged roughly at his scalp. "She was in love with him, most likely. And judging by the fact that he had a letter set aside for her in case of his death, I'd say he loved her too."

"They could have just been friends. I mean, what do you know about love anyway?" Mello retorted, trying not to let Near make a fool out of him. Again.

Near simply shrugged as he put the last puzzle piece into his almost blank puzzle, letting out a slight sigh when he realized that there was still a hole on the board for a piece that had apparently gone missing.

--

Whether or not she would visit Japan, it was too early to tell. Maybe in a year, I'll go, she thought to herself as she sat on a bench at the train station, anxiously tapping her fingers on her thighs. After my life goes back to the way it was before him. After I remember what I had been working towards before getting to Japan was my goal because now, I seem to have lost sight of my purpose.

I remember sleepless nights and patient files. I remember ironed clothing that never felt right and people telling me my eyes are creepy to look at. I remember my lifeless apartment, white walls and gray furniture and no one to bring it to life. I remember sitting on my couch, eating an impromptu dinner alone with the television on but my mind not being able to focus as the numbers and symptoms repeated themselves until I wanted to scream.

Then I remember dreaming of feelings, not plots. I remember wearing the same thing for days and being told that my eyes should not be hidden from the world. I remember my hotel room and having company to sit with me and talk. I remember sitting on a hotel couch, sharing a piece of cake and not saying anything because we have given actions a higher privilege than words for that day.

And then the train stopped, its doors opening up and welcoming her inside and all she could think was, I wonder if any train will be able to take me far enough away.


End file.
